Comment by wing-_-nuts
3 months ago
and it comes with free malware!
I gotta be honest man, I do not understand someone who pirates executable code. I (and I assume most of the hn audience) am not some starving student with nothing to lose. I would much rather run linux than pirate windows.
You might not be up to date on how this works.
The OS installation images come from Microsoft. They're the same amount of malware as the OS that comes preinstalled on your laptop. Probably a tad less, depending on the brand.
So instead of downloading the OS, you're downloading a patching executable? How do you trust this? Is it open source and auditable? Otherwise you're opening yourself up to the same concerns.
No, you download a powershell script which computes a couple of strings and calls a couple of commands. The code is not obfuscated.
What about the crack executable?
It's free and open-source.
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I assume you haven’t checked on this since the Windows 7 days, but Massgrave is open source, and the activation logic boils down to about five lines of PowerShell, using only native Windows utilities. I think they even have a tutorial on their website that explains how to perform the activation manually if you want to avoid running their scripts.
Is it 5 lines of PowerShell or 19861 lines of cmd?
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/b...
Did you bother to even look at the tutorial on their website? You know, the one mentioned in the comment you replied to?
https://massgrave.dev/manual_hwid_activation / https://massgrave.dev/manual_ohook_activation / https://massgrave.dev/manual_kms38_activation
Most of those 19861 lines allow it to be an all in one script for multiple activation methods and products. And, if you're still skeptical, then you are free to audit all 19861 lines yourself.
Maybe at the very least educate yourself before acting so smug.
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If you are worried about malware from your pirated content you are going to the wrong websites. The good ones are hard to get on and have severe consequences for the uploader and whoever invited them.
However severe those consequences are, I'm sure it's not 'cryptolocker hard drive' or worse 'lose hundreds of thousands from my brokerage account' severe. I am happy to pay for my bits. It's wild to me this is somehow a controversial opinion on a board supposedly populated with well paid software engineers.
I’m thankfully no crypto nut and use windows only for gaming, so I’m prepared for any and all consequences of me pirating it. Btw it’s just downloading the official image and unlocking it with open source software, so I would argue there is no risk at all.
Btw did you audit all the Linux source code to check for malware?
Agree with you but not every answer is move to Linux. A lot of us help family member with IT stuff. People I help use excel, quicken, and one drive to run their businesses and finances. I could see myself running into GPs license issue with my father in law.
I tried to get a few of them to use chromebooks but the need for quicken or another app they used for decade(s) keeps them windows based.
I agree. Some people don't really think about licences, they buy a PC with Windows and only buy another when that one stops being usable. Even this forced upgrade to 11 is still the path of least resistance.
The ones who're pirating the non executable code are who I don't understand. Oh and I'm a starving PhD student.
Shouldn't talk about things that you don't know much about so confidently
Lmao what? Microsoft gives the ISO's away and the MassGrave tools literally use Microsoft's own code to activate it.
What???
Commenter was suggesting using original Microsoft ISOs and verifying through massgrave.
Zero malware